


The one scar that'll never heal

by stormthedarkcity



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, M/M, Scars, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25115647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormthedarkcity/pseuds/stormthedarkcity
Summary: Zevran gives Alistair a hand with his wound, and they have a talk about scars and about Zevran's past.
Relationships: Alistair/Zevran Arainai
Comments: 16
Kudos: 63
Collections: ZevWarden Week 2020





	The one scar that'll never heal

**Author's Note:**

> I'm feeling v insecure abt my writing after several empty months pls be gentle u.u

Zevran was sitting cross-legged in the grass, watching through the fire as Alistair struggled with the bandage on his arm. It wasn't exactly that he was bad at caring for his wounds, no– a more accurate statement would be that he did not seem to concern himself much with the end result. He’d just slap some elfroot salve on a fresh cut, no matter how gnarled, sometimes put a bandage on top, and leave it at that. Well, if he didn’t ruin the bandage within a day by picking at it mindlessly and scratching through it.

Zevran got up, weaving through their distracted friends to make his way to him.

“I can help you with this, if you wish.”

Alistair’s head shot upward, confused surprise painted on his face. Ah, the man was no rogue, alright. Zevran took him off guard at least three times a day, and most of these he wasn’t even trying to sneak up on him. He smiled, and sat down without waiting for permission.

Alistair’s healing kit was open in front of him, so Zevran dragged it to himself, tutting when Alistair began protesting.

“There are some steps of healing you should not do on your own, if you wish for good results. Besides,” he added, planting a finger on Alistair’s clothed thigh to mark his point, right about where a scar had formed after what had happened in the Deep Roads, “those would not heal so poorly if you stopped picking at them, this I can promise you.”

Alistair sighed dramatically, before letting his head fall onto his free hand, cheek squished against the ball of his hand.

“I know, I know,” he said with a pout in his voice. “But it’s hard not to! It’s itchy and it’s _right there_!”

Zevran couldn’t hold back a chuckle as he began unravelling the bandage to adjust it. Alistair grimaced but didn’t protest when his skin was pulled in the process.

“ _You_ don’t, though,” he finally said, voice lower, and with that edge of curiosity it sometimes had with Zevran. “Pick at your wounds.”

Zevran glanced up at him, before reporting his attention back to Alistair’s arm. “How do you know?”

“You have almost no scars! I mean, you’ve been an assassin for years, right? You’re bound to have gotten hurt a few times. But you don’t have any big scars anywhere.”

There was a bitter taste in Zevran’s mouth. He swallowed it and smirked, all the way to his eyes, as he leaned forward and said like a confession, “hmm, I take it you have been looking, Alistair, my dear?”

Alistair’s eyes widened, until the flickering fire was reflected in his irises.

“I– No!” he protested as Zevran was finishing securing the bandage to his arm. “Well, it’s– You know, sometimes we all just bathe in rivers when we camp and I– I just– I just noticed that, I guess! I didn’t– I haven’t been _looking_!”

Zevran felt his smirk transform into a sweet smile as he held back a laugh.

“Shame.” He lifted a single eyebrow before leaning back again, sobered up as soon as he considered the real reasons for his lack of important scarring.

Because, by all accounts, Alistair was right: Zevran should have been covered in scars. Not only from his missions, especially the early ones, which he was sent to far too inexperienced – likely to teach him humility, he had realised years later – but also simply from…being a Crow. From the years of harsh practice, the combat lessons, and the pain training, and his own failed poisons he had to swallow and which made him so ill for so long that Taliesen used to make him bleed like they would in those books, hoping it would help him evacuate the toxins faster.

Overall, it was a miracle from the Maker that Zevran was alive at all. But the scarring… That part wasn’t by chance.

He looked at Alistair. His head was tilted to the side, eyes squinted, but it wasn’t an aggressive stance; it was one Zevran had seen often in Alistair, when he was prodding in places he probably shouldn’t be prodding in. Usually, Zevran would have brushed it aside with another joke, but lately he had found himself more and more unwilling to hide things from Alistair.

He swallowed.

“I do not pick at my wounds, no.” His voice felt serious. A seriousness reserved for talking to himself or to the Maker. “I treat them as best as I can. I would be quite the unskilled assassin if I let my past and my weaknesses trace a map on my body, would I not?”

“I suppose,” Alistair admitted.

“Besides,” Zevran smiled again, although this one felt a little weaker than usual, “why would I ever let harm come to this _masterpiece_ that is my body?”

He winked at Alistair pointedly, sending a faint blush on his cheeks.

“Hmm,” Alistair grumbled, his gaze falling to the ground between them.

His hair was messy from wearing his helmet all day. Zevran wanted to fix it. Or maybe mess it up some more. Or maybe he just really, really wanted to touch Alistair’s hair. To touch _him_. Alistair had this aura about him, this honesty and purpose that made Zevran want to stay close, to stand very near him so often that maybe, just maybe, he could bathe in that aura a little bit.

“Here.” Zevran held out his hand, and Alistair's curious eyes shot up again. “Your hand. Give it to me.”

He wiggled his fingers meaningfully; after a moment of hesitation, Alistair held out his own hand, and Zevran slowly pulled him by the wrist toward his stomach, lifting his shirt with his free hand. Alistair flinched for a second when he realised where they were headed, but after a quick exchange of glances he let himself be pulled.

Zevran gently pushed Alistair’s fingers against a raised bump of skin, just above his hipbone, As long and as wide as one of Zevran’s own fingers.

“I do have one noticeable scar. You merely missed it.”

“That’s because I wasn’t _looking_ ,” Alistair protested once more, but there was no real heat to it. He let his fingers glide blindly on the scar, down and up and back down. His hand was calloused, but so very warm and delicate that Zevran had to stop a shiver that was forming at the base of his skull.

Another person’s touch often felt good, provided its intention wasn’t to harm. But this was… This was far kinder, far more careful than any touch Zevran had ever received, and something about it and about the way Alistair’s head tilted in curiosity again made him feel like he might stop breathing. Or maybe cry, which was a strange feeling, given that he hadn’t done such a thing in years. Not since Rinna.

“Where did you get it?”

Alistair voice was no louder than the crackling of the fire. He looked up at him, warm hand still on his skin, and his face was so very close to Zevran’s own. Zevran opened his mouth to explain, to say who Rinnala was, to tell him of what they were and of what had happened, to share that the scarring on his abdomen was the mark Rinna had left as she was struggling, agonising under him, but…

No sound came out. He closed his mouth, closed his eyes, bit on the inside of his cheeks. Hard. Until he tasted iron in his mouth and he was certain the salt in his eyes wasn’t going to spill.

“You don’t– You don’t have to tell me,” Alistair scrambled as he made a move to pull back. Zevran grabbed his wrist and held him there. Skin against skin against skin.

“I want to,” he murmured, and then stopped when his voice felt like it was going to break. He breathed out. In. “I will. Someday.”

When he opened his eyes again, he found Alistair’s attentive gaze on him, stable, unyielding. But not pitying. Zevran couldn’t have handle pity. He tried smiling, but all he could manage was to make his mouth tremble. The hand on his skin was warm. He focused on how it felt, to have this stable weight on him, pressing into his old scar, patient and kind.

He didn’t try to smile again, choosing instead to wrap his hand around Alistair’s unmoving wrist, until he could feel his steady pulse.

The fire crackled. Farther away, Cousland laughed at something.

Someday, Zevran would tell Alistair about the scar. He let go of his wrist.

“Come now, allow me to help you clothe yourself without pulling on the bandage. We do not wish to damage _that_ masterpiece any more than mine, do we?”


End file.
